


no kiss goodnight

by alex (inventedlove)



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:49:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28815168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inventedlove/pseuds/alex
Summary: idk how to write summaries but basically Neil survived but Anderperry just didn't <3PLEASE IF YOU DIDN'T READ THE TAGS, TRIGGER WARNING ! SUICIDE ATTEMPT
Relationships: Anderperry - Relationship, Charlie Dalton/Neil Perry, Cherry - Relationship, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	no kiss goodnight

Neil’s play was successful and Todd found himself to be the proudest person in the theatre. The person he had liked for a long time was finally able to do something he had always wanted; something not his father picked for him. “He was good, he was really good.” Todd thought to himself after the play. 

After the play had ended, the whole group along with Mr. Keating waiting for Neil outside. It was cold and dark out. They were all waiting for him to congratulate him and when he turned up they all gave him hugs and praised him. Neil however was not happy. He had seen his father while performing and ever since then, he was in emotional turmoil. He smiled as brightly as he could so that others wouldn’t notice how nervous he was to see his father outside. After reuniting with the others, his father took him away from the group. Todd saw Neil enter the Mr. Perry’s car and Neil left with no words exchanged to each other. 

***

After Neil had left, Todd started to have an uneasy feeling. He knew he needed to see Neil but he didn’t know why; so Todd being Todd, he went to the nearest phone booth and called Neil’s house multiple times until someone answered. 

“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered the phone. 

Todd’s mind suddenly went blank. He couldn’t remember why he’d called in the first place and tried his best to utter a word. 

“Neil.” Todd said.

“Neil? Who is this?”

“Todd Anderson, ma’am.” He stuttered in his words as he held the phone thighly, whilst holding it against the side of his face. 

“Oh! Todd darling! Why didn’t you say so,” Mrs. Perry said while smiling on the other side of the phone. “Neil is fine darling! He’s just having a talk with his father right now. Is there something wrong?” 

Todd felt the immediate rush of nervousness fill his body. “Neil talking to his father wasn’t good,” he thought to himself. 

“Could you tell him I called?” 

“Alright dear. Now you take care.” 

Mrs. Perry didn’t tell Neil. The phone call ended and she went back to Mr. Perry’s study and returned to her seat. Watching her dear husband talk to Neil about the amount of disappointment he felt since Neil had gone against his words. Mrs. Perry stayed silent, she knew she couldn’t say a word or her life would be worse but she had to be there for her child. In the end, her fear got over her and she wasn’t able to be the shoulder Neil would later cry on for when he would constantly break apart. 

Mr. Perry left the room after telling Neil that he would stop going to Welton and go to military school instead. Mrs. Perry sat behind Neil,

“I was good. I was really good.” Neil said as tears travelled down his cheeks, mindlessly staring into what was in front of him. 

***

Once Mr. and Mrs. Perry were fast asleep in their bed, Neil took it upon himself to do the unthinkable. He made his journey to Mr. Perry’s study room and opened the drawer which had a lock on it. He knew where the keys were and unlocked it, there he saw a 9 millimetre glock. He placed the glock down in front of him and sat on the chair beside him. He stared at the glock for a few minutes thinking about it, wanting to end it all, his pain and suffering. He held the glock once more and fired. Neil’s body fell on the ground, and his parents were awakened by the sound and rushed towards it.

Todd had been pondering the entire night whether or not he should go to Neil’s house just in case, but without realising it, he found himself already in front of his house. Todd observed the front of the house and saw Neil’s window opened with the crown he wore in the play on display; he heard a loud bang, he realised that it wasn’t some ordinary noise, but the sound of a gun that had been fired. His heart started to race. He rushed to the front door, banging on it, 

“Let me in! Let me in!” he shouted as his throat began to tighten and soon found it hard to breathe. “Neil!”

Provided that no one heard his loud banging on the door, Todd thought it would be better to climb up Neil’s window. So he did. He followed the light downstairs which led him to Mr. Perry’s study. 

There Todd saw Neil hugging the glock while his father held him tightly. Neil had shot the 2 door display cabinet that had his photos in it along with his previous awards. Todd was shocked to see Neil like this, so he ran towards Neil, 

“Neil oh god, what happened?” 

***

Neil returned back to school after a week of absence. Todd knew why he couldn’t go to school and their friendship deepened. The rest of the group didn’t know anything, except Charlie. Charlie and Neil were childhood friends so whatever happened to one of them, the other knew. Although Todd was Neil’s roommate, and the new friend, Charlie was the one you’d always find right beside Neil’s bed while he was resting for that one week. Charlie too took a leave from school to be with Neil and this made Todd extremely jealous. “I was the one there with him that night,” he would often think to himself. Todd tried to remove this jealousy he felt towards Charlie but he couldn’t. He also couldn’t exactly point out what made him feel this way, was it because Neil was his new friend or that he had a crush on Neil, or perhaps even both; he just knew he wanted to get closer to Neil. 

“Neil you’re back.” Todd said.

“Yeah, yeah I guess I am.” Neil replied with little to no energy. He wasn’t exactly glad to be back just yet, he still felt unwell but his father thought that it would be better so that his grades wouldn’t drop, he had already missed one week of school. 

Todd held Neil tightly. He was happy to have his friend and roommate back. He then saw Charlie behind Neil carrying both of their baggages. Todd felt a sudden pain in his chest, he didn’t like feeling that. 

He let go of Neil and focused his attention on Charlie who was carrying Neil’s bags. 

“Charlie, you too.” He tried not to sound so bitter but he knew he couldn’t. 

Charlie just smiled at Todd. Not one of them hugged each other though, Charlie wasn’t particularly close with Todd but he knew how fond Neil was towards Todd so he always treated Todd with extra care, he even thought of him as the most fragile person often comparing him to a glass, sensitive and could easily break. 

***

Each night, Charlie would spend half an hour in their room, talking to Neil of course and helping him with anything he needed. Sometimes it would be more than half an hour which annoyed Todd a lot. He wished to be the one helping Neil but he couldn’t because Charlie was always there, taking the very spot he wanted the most. Again, his place beside Neil was stolen from him and he didn’t know how to fight that. Whenever Neil gets something wrong and Charlie corrects him, Neil would give Charlie the prettiest smile that Todd envied the most and felt that to be the worst time of his nights. 

Of course Charlie would have to leave at some point so before leaving he would put Neil to bed. One night however, Todd had been out and as he was about to enter their room, in the small gap that he had made, he saw Charlie give Neil a goodnight kiss. He felt rage for the first time that night. 

***

Todd watched Neil and Charlie become each other’s “the one.” Years passed and he still had his stupid, he regularly called it, crush on Neil. He didn’t exactly know how to end this feeling and thought it was hopeless to even try. He figured that if he waited long enough, his feeling for Neil would stop but it didn’t. It had already been 5 years since that night, and they had all graduated from Welton, of course going to some Ivy League University. Todd and Neil went to the same one, Princeton University, so they still saw each other. Todd tried not to have Neil as his roommate again and it worked; Neil felt saddened by the fact that Todd didn’t want to live with him anymore. 

On one of their reunion events, Charlie and Neil announced that they were together and planned to live together after they both had graduated from their respective universities. Todd felt so betrayed by Neil when this had happened as he considered Neil as his best friend during their time in University and Neil failed to even mention that he and Charlie started dating each other. The whole group didn’t feel as if this should’ve been a shock as they all already figured, one would say that Neil and Charlie should have celebrated the fact that their friends were not homophobic towards them instead of the announcement of their partnership; though this was already expected, they were the most progressive bunch back in Welton.

Todd grew old and in his lifetime, he saw the person he liked, his best friend, former roommate, love someone deeply other than him. He stayed unmarried, not even adopting a child; he thought that becoming the godfather of his best friend's child would have been enough. And it was. He tried to be there for the child more than his parents were for him and the child often called Todd, “Dad.” The couple didn’t mind this at all and even encouraged their child to continue. Todd was welcomed in the family, but he still felt not welcomed at most times. They were a family that he could interact with yes but reach? It would be out of his mind. They had their own little world and Todd would always just be a visitor no matter how close he was with them. 

He remained Neil’s friend until the end. He and Neil watched Charlie pass away, and at some point even Neil too. He was the one to see his best friend get buried, the one to give the eulogy and the one to be there for the child. He knew in the end that he led a happy life despite watching his dear love grow old with somebody else, he was content even if sometimes Neil felt unreachable. 

On his last day, he asked the child to play one song for him and it was ‘Beautiful Boy’ by John Lenon. It was the song that always reminded him of the boy he once loved. And then, Todd passed away peacefully with the child beside him, playing the song on his guitar.

**Author's Note:**

> my twitter is @inventedlove :)


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